It was a privilege and a pleasure to edit Nell Dunn’s The Bully Plays. In short dramatic scenes, written with empathy and insight, Dunn’s eight different voices reveal the myriad emotions of teenage life: fears and tensions around bullying; conforming to expectations; what happens when you don’t fit into society’s version of ‘normal’ selfhood?

Nell Dunn is a distinguished writer and playwright. TV dramatizations of her novels Up the Junction and Poor Cow were directed by Ken Loach, and her play Steaming won the SWET, Evening Standard and Susan Smith Blackburn Awards for Best Play (1981).

The Editor’s Notebook: JC Consultancy

BookRambler

Robin Wasserman’s Lithub article on the girling of contemporary culture gets to the heart of those niggling questions behind the term ‘girl’ and why, as women, the term raises hackles. How can it be offensive when girl-titled books — Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, The Girl in the Red Coat — resonate with women readers? I […]

Barefoot at the Lake: A memoir of summer people and water creatures, by Bruce Fogle (September Publishing) Along with other city families, the Fogles spent the months from June to August at their Lake Chemong cabin, involved in the local community and wasting days on Swallows-and-Amazons-type summer activities, while father, Morris, commuted to work in his […]